The Five Stages of Grief
by qwyzm
Summary: Two months after Sherlock's supposed suicide, Ella persuades John to keep a record of the grieving process through the lens of the Kublar-Ross model of grief. What follows is a collection of John's journal entries.


_8/2011  
_  
Ella forced me to start this.

_8/2011  
_  
**Thoughts on the 'grieving process'  
**  
I'm sceptical of this Kubler-Ross model for mourning; the five stages of grief.  
Five steps. _Five_ steps to work through loss, tragedy, pain, death.  
There's no way that this...indescribable, contradictory, bloody confusing mess can be sorted out into five steps.  
It all looks so neat on the computer screen. The tiny pixels solidly stacked into letters into words into a list that's supposed to explain how I'll regain my stability. But that's the problem. I don't want stability. I am well past sick of stability. I want madness and chaos to shake my boat again, to tear me away from the sordid order of it all, to make me feel at home amongst explosions and horror and danger and death...  
Any death but this one.  
And any way but this one.  
And anyone but this one.

_8/2011  
_**  
The first stage of grieving: Denial and Isolation**

I guess I've experienced the isolation. There wasn't much point to seeing anybody. Everybody I knew, I either knew through him or from ages ago. I didn't feel much like going out anyway.  
Regarding the denial? Not one bit. I don't deny that he's dead. I can't. I saw him fall. I took his pulse. That, I can remember. It all becomes hazy after they took him away, but I can still see the splatter across his forehead, the dark maroon sheen of his blood-drenched hair. I can see it as clearly as the day it happened. I can almost remember his voice when he said goodbye. It's never quite right in my dreams. I can't deny his death because I relive it in my nightmares.

_8/2011 - 2/2012  
_  
**The second stage of grieving: Anger**

I'm uncomfortable with this. I don't like to be angry at him. But I am. A bit. More than a bit.

* * *

I was angry with him and we fought. I called him a machine. I never got to apologise. I am sorry. Doesn't make much difference now, does it?

* * *

I hate that he did it and I hate him and it fucking pisses me off that he made me watch him. I mean really, fuck him. What kind of prick would do that to his best mate? Make him fucking watch you fucking die and he didn't even let me say goodbye to him and I don't understand anything about it.

* * *

I got pretty hammered last night. I don't remember writing that. But I didn't mean it. I don't hate him. Hate myself for saying it, now. The rest is accurate, I guess.

* * *

As if it's not already clear, I hate thinking about this. Being angry at him. I don't want to be angry. He would sometimes seem like he actually cared when I got angry. As if it actually bothered him a bit. I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining it. But I don't want to be angry at him.

* * *

As much as I don't want to be angry, I can't forgive him. I just can't. I've tried and I can't. I'm bloody hopeless at this.

* * *

I can't explain why. It's one of those things. I don't want to think about it. Just makes me more angry.

* * *

It hurts. That's why, maybe. I don't know. It's hard and it hurts and he's off being dead while I'm here listening to people talk shit and I'm here in this bloody flat and I'm stuck here feeling all these fucking things and he's off scot-free. It's not fair.

* * *

Drunk again when I wrote that.

* * *

I guess I just wish he would've told me the reason why. Not that shit on the phone. The real reason.

* * *

I wish I could have stopped him.

* * *

I'm angry at myself now. For a lot of things. Being inadequate, I guess, and for that stupid comment at Bart's. I told him the truth at the cemetery I guess. Doesn't count though.

* * *

I tried and he wouldn't let me. So there, I fucking tried. What more could I do?

* * *

I still feel guilty.

* * *

Giving up on this shite.

_2/2012  
_  
**The third stage of grief: Bargaining**

I guess I did some of this in the anger section. Shifting blame. I dunno. I'm still angry. Can't think right now.

* * *

I don't think I'm really feeling this. Maybe he rubbed off on me. Logic and all.

* * *

More depressed than anything. Temper's been touchy. Don't want to think about it.

_2/2012 - 9/2012  
_  
**The fourth stage of grief: Depression**

Yes.

_9/2012 - 1/2013  
_  
**The fifth stage of grief: Acceptance**

Not yet. Nowhere close. Still a bit angry. Still miss him. Still depressed. Not as vaguely, though. It's more acute. It flares up every once in a while. Like my shoulder, I guess. It doesn't hurt all the time anymore. I still miss him.

* * *

I guess I'll take a moment to explain the lack of writing in the last section. I just couldn't. I couldn't put it into words, I couldn't focus long enough to try, I didn't want to think about it. Like I said earlier, it was vague, sort of hazy, but it smothered me as well as a pillow. I just couldn't write about it.

* * *

I don't know if I want to accept it. That he's dead and gone and I'm not. I've known and acknowledged it factually for awhile. Since the initial shock wore off, really, and I guess I've been sort of resigned to that fact, but that's a far sight from acceptance. Accepting it means moving on. It's positive, sort of. I don't know if I want to feel positively about his death. His suicide, to not mince words. He wouldn't. Might as well give him that.  
And actually, if it was any other way, I think it might have been easier. Fate and probability, really. But this was all him. To accept it means to forgive him. I'm still not sure if I can do that.

* * *

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I'm glad to not constantly be feeling like crap, but I still don't know if I like feeling happy. Like really happy, not just situational. I feel like I owe it to him to not be, or something. I dunno. It's weird.

* * *

I'm starting to feel better. A lot better. I don't want to go back to where I was. I just don't want to say goodbye, I guess. He was a major chapter in my life. I suppose I'm a bit nostalgic and don't really want to close it.  
Fitting metaphor too, I guess. The cases will be properly published soon. And I've found other people like me. Who know that he didn't fake it. More people than I'd ever imagined. It feels good to remember him like that, in a positive way. It doesn't hurt anymore. I guess this is acceptance. Or near it, anyway.  
Anyway, I'm glad I found other believers. I've met some really nice people. Things are starting to look up.

* * *

I guess I've done it. I've thought about it and I don't have much else to say. I miss him, as I always will, and I wish he was still here, but..death is death. There's not much to do about it beyond remembering the life that used to be.  
And what a life it was.

Signing off,  
John Watson, January 2013


End file.
